Placement round 5 - 8 in Ohrid

Netherlands – Brazil 30:27 (12:13)

Although the Netherlands did not play their best handball, they are on the best way to finish this Women´s Youth (U18) World Championship with a really good result. In the first placement match for the places 5 to 8 they beat Brazil with 30:27 and are now qualified for the match for place 5 and 6 against Korea, while Brazil will play against Russia for place 7. It was a hard piece of work for the Europeans to beat their competitor from Pan-America, although they had the better start. With concentration and power the Dutch girls built up an early lead with 8:4 after 8 minutes and 20 seconds. But this intermediate result did not last for long. Another eight minutes later Brazil scored for th 9:9 draw and the match was open again. From now on the match swayed back and forth until the final stages. After 30 minutes Brazil was leading with 13:12, but coming back on court it took the Netherlands not even four minutes to turn the match again. The match was very tight until the 51st minute (24:24). Then Team Oranje scored three times in a row and were ahead with 27:24. They defended this gap successfully until the final whistle. Best scorer of the match was the Dutch player Delaila Amega with eight goals.

Korea – Russia 28:26 (13:13)

After they lost their quarter-final against an overwhelming German team on Wednesday, the Koreans found back to the winning track. The Asians won against Russia with 28:26 and will play for the fifth place against the Netherlands on Sunday, while Russia will face Brazil in the match for place 7. In the beginning it was a match of lost balls and missed chances. Russia was in lead with 8:5, because Korea was playing with lack of concentration and a lot of mistakes. After a team time-out Korea changed the tactics in defense. The Russian girls had very big difficulties to play against the aggressively acting defense of the Korean girls, who scored five times in a row and turned the match upside down. But Russia stroke back and it was a 13:13 draw at break. During the second 30 minutes Korea built up a lead and they extended it goal by goal. After 45 minutes the match was pre-decided, when Seongeu Kim scored for 23:17. With six goals ahead the Koreans played it cool until the end although Russia scored the last four goals and shortened the residue to 26:28 during the final stages of this match.